Five that are Seriously Underrated. (Under, not Over)

[Baron Kurtz]

Casino Royale i always enjoy. The Cube is great.

Never saw Waterworld. I hear it has quite a following these days - Now that the cost of making it is not seen as being so ludicrous. That gave it a lot of bad press when it came out, i remember.

bk

 

[nightandthecity]

I just gotta second some of these...

The Usual Suspects..... is simply one of the great films

The Friends of Eddie Coyle...one of Mitchum's best, and seriously under-rated

Angel Heart....yeah, that was really good, I had almost forgotten, a great blend of noir and horror

and Michael Powell.... thanks Mud, Powell and Pressburger were always brilliant, my favourite is A Canterbury Tale, whose eerie, mystical evocation of Englishness has never been surpassed.

 

[MudInYerEye]

Excellent flick! Great book too. For those that haven't read it yet, do so but quick. Superb, ultra-realistic gritty crime story written by ex-prosecutor George V. Higgins. The entire book is written in dialogue! Lightning fast page-turner.

 

[jamespowers]

I'm VERY often wrong, but I was under the impression that the original THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is generally rated as one of the greatest thrillers of all-time.

Not really. When is the last time you have heard of it being praised? The new one was but it was a hunk of junk and they praised that. Let's have a show of hands of people here who have actually seen the original. :arated:
The first one was classic. The sap getting the medal of honor for fictitiously saving his whole platoon, who were brainwashed and didn't remember what he did to receive the award. The Sinatra character finally figuring it all out and finding the sap's fellow traveler parents, the mother of which is a real domineering shew, were in on the political conspiracy. It was a shocking look at what could easily happen.
I wouldn't really call it a thriller either. I would call it more of a controversial drama maybe even science fiction with the brainwashing aspect.

Regards to all,

J

 

[MudInYerEye]

Not really. When is the last time you have heard of it being praised? The new one was but it was a hunk of junk and they praised that. Let's have a show of hands of people here who have actually seen the original.

Drats, I am wrong again. I was under the mistaken impression that it was a very well known film considered a classic by many. My apologies.

 

[jamespowers]

Drats, I am wrong again. I was under the mistaken impression that it was a very well known film considered a classic by many. My apologies.

Hahahahahhahah! You're killing me. :icon_smil

Regards,

J

 

[airfrogusmc]

Almost forgot
Lone Star
Mortal Thoughts

 

[Senator Jack]

'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'

To this day, critics continue to tear this picture apart. Too long. The slapstick is corny. A cameo picture with no plot. (duh!) Of course, I have to watch it every time it's on.

So what's not to like about Dick Shawn's maniacal driving (I'm comin' momma, I'm comin') or having Jonathan Winters riding a girl's bike (I can't ride this bike. It's for a little girl. This is a little girl's bike.) or watching Terry Thomas and Milton Berle slug it out in the desert ('What's this American obsession with bosoms?')

All right, not extremely funny, but, if anything, what I do appreciate about the film is that Stanley Kramer left us with a great visual document of California in the early 60s. The sky is blue, the palm trees sway, the cars are chromed. Sometimes I watch the film just for the glimpses of the coastal towns they speed past. The old store fronts, the women in smart dresses.

I first saw IAMMMMW at the local theater sometime around '69/'70. That was in an era when the screens were large and the popcorn fresh. I must have been about five and my sister took me to the Saturday matinee. (The school used to give out numbered cards and if your number matched any on the list at the theater, you got in free - Anyone else remember that?) Funny how that memory stays with me. Perhaps someday they'll finish the restoration of the original 190 minute cut. I'd love to see it at someplace like Radio City.

'The Great Race'

The second 60s sprawling comedy that I think underrated. I find Blake Edwards to be hit or miss, but I think on this outing it was the former. Jack Lemmon is a howl as Professor Fate (you can tell he had fun with the part) and the chemistry between him and Peter Falk is as good as the silent comedy duos Blake had them emulate ('Push the button, Max!) Plus there's the great Mancini soundtrack featuring 'The Sweetheart Tree.' A fun and funny picture.


Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Marc Chevalier]

BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL (1984).

It's underrated because critics do not recognize it as the worst film ever released ... and it IS the worst film ever released, believe me. I say that as a compliment.

 

[jake_fink]

nightandthecity:
The Friends of Eddie Coyle...one of Mitchum's best, and seriously under-rated

MudInYerEye:
Excellent flick! Great book too. For those that haven't read it yet, do so but quick. Superb, ultra-realistic gritty crime story written by ex-prosecutor George V. Higgins. The entire book is written in dialogue! Lightning fast page-turner.

Too true. Higgins wrote a lot of good stuff, including a book on writing. He is an underrated crime writer - a genre where reputations are generally horribly inflated. He says that Friends was not based on actual transcripts of wire taps and bugged conversations - though it certainly reads that way. Grat book.

BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL (1984).

It's underrated because critics do not recognize it as the worst film ever released ... and it IS the worst film ever released, believe me. I say that as a compliment.

Haven't seen it. Can it be worse than Troll 2?

 

[Senator Jack]

I always thought it incredibly insular for critics to proclaim 'Plan 9' the worst picture ever made. For about $900 Ed Wood made a watchable picture while Hal Needham made the completely unwatchable Cannonball Run II for something like $9,000,000. Certainly my selection for worst picture ever made, though I must confess that I'm drawn to the scene where the racers interact with Frank Sinatra by way of obvious blue screen photography. He couldn't be bothered to show up on the same day of shooting. Plus, did anyone stop to think that for a high speed road race, it takes them about a day and a half just to get past Vegas? Reprehensible.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[jake_fink]

Hal Needham also made Mega Force.

Yikes.

 

[Sefton]

Good God! Megaforce....my brain had buried the memory of that "film" so deep that I hadn't thought of it till I read your post. Amazingly lacking in any originality and really,really dull. Hal Needham what mediocrity hast thou wrought!

I'll second "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World". A great big sloppy mess of a movie that is damn entertaining. Speaking of Jonathan Winters, how about "The Loved One" for an underrated comedy...

 

[BellyTank]

The films of Hal Hartley

I'll have to second JakeFink's Jim Jarmusch proposition- especially "Ghost Dog" - it made me buy the "Hagakure" book.

Let me add with great enthusiasm- any all of Hal Hartley's earlier fims and shorts. His work must be underrated because not so many Americans seem to have heard of him, although he seemed to kick-start a genre- he has a great following across the Atlantic- small budgets, ensemble cast and based around NY and especially Long Island.

There's something of the Noir in there too.

His 'big budget' films are good too but the simple charm of the smaller films dwindles slightly. Some of his cast have gone on to much bigger and better things- watch out for a young Holly Marie Combs, as the (naughty)Catholic school girl gone bad in 1992's "Simple Men". And of course, the fantastic, dead-pan, mysterious and psychotic Martin Donovan in most of the earlier films and some of the later.

There's something very special and moving about his films- circular, non-seqitir and sometimes pointless dialogues, (a lot of clever humour)a lot of chemistry between actors/actresses, (sexy too)plenty of small (big too)filmic pleasures- a certain home-made and approchable quality and beautiful, home-grown music- it's all in the art and Hartley's and artist for sure-
read some reviews.
Someone once said he made the perfect film.

A quote:

"Over the past decade, Hal Hartley has operated largely under the radar of the massive media attention focused on "independent film" in this country. At the same time, he is viewed abroad as one of the most significant American directors of his generation. Hartley was selected by French television?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s La Sept Arte as the sole American participant in its prestigious "2000 Seen By" film series and was tapped by the Salzburg Opera Festival for a major staging of his play Soon. Festival awards for his screenplays at Sundance and Cannes bear witness to Hartley?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s gift for quirky characters, lively dialogue, and wry humor: his films are all immediately identifiable by the deliberate cadence to his actors?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ delivery and the strange normalcy that cloaks even the most eccentric turns of his plot lines. Yet these films are marked equally by a sensuous awareness of color and formal movement, as well by their hip rock scores?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùoften composed and performed by the ubiquitous Ned Rifle (a Hartley alter ego). A fundamental humanity?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùreminiscent of the sensibility of the French New Wave?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùpervades Hartley?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s narratives, even amidst outbursts of violence and quiet despair. In brief, he is an auteur. And if we can be said to have reached the end of cinema, then Hal Hartley may well be our last auteur."

Seriously- every film-lover needs to see some of these- but watch the earlier ones in the order they were made- there are plenty of in-jokes for the fans, which you may otherwise miss.

B
T (a fan)

 

[herringbonekid]

i'm a big hal hartley fan too. i used to watch his films repeatedly in my 20s.
'trust', 'the unbelievable truth' and 'simple men' are all great though i wasn't so keen on 'amateur' or 'henry fool'. i fear he is starting to repeat himself. something that has happened to david lynch too, another of my favourites.

 

[BellyTank]

True- but those early ones are still film magic.
I thought Amateur was good but that certain low budget charm and wonder was a little overshadowed by the glitzy, bigger budget effort.
Loved the Sonic Youth diversion in Simple Men.

What about Atom Egoyan then..? Seen "The Adjuster"(1991)..?
His best, I believe.

B
T